Field of the Invention
The present invention involves the fields of medical technology and relates especially to controlling or monitoring imaging methods and systems, for example, diagnostic magnetic resonance (MR) methods and MR systems or other systems.
Description of the Prior Art
The diagnostic MR system 10 schematically shown in FIG. 1 comprises an MR system or MR scanner 100 and an MR control system 200.
The MR scanner 100 includes components, such as a gradient array with gradient amplifier and gradients, a transmitter unit (TX unit, radio frequency unit, RF unit) with radio-frequency (RF) amplifier (RF power amplifier, RFPA) and radio-frequency coil and a receiver unit (RX unit) and is controlled by the MR control system 200.
The MR control system 200 includes a computer 210, control devices 220-250 and a real-time computer 260. The control device 220 is used for controlling the gradients of the gradient array. The control device 230 is used for controlling the transmitter unit and processing RF signals in the transmitter unit. The control unit 240 is used to control the receiver unit and digitalize RF signals received in the receiver unit. The control device 250 is used for generally controlling the MR scanner 100.
When operating the MR system 10, the data acquisition process during an examination is controlled by a sequence that precisely determines the moments of gradient activity, radio-frequency pulses and measurements so that MR images can be calculated or reconstructed from MR measurements in the form of MR signals or MR data.
At the same time, for the protection of the patient the MR system 10 has to monitor the local specific absorption rate (SAR) radiated by the transmitter unit. For this purpose, the MR system 10 has a real-time computer 260, for example, a customized device (hardware) and/or programming (software) such as a (measuring) directional coupler with a field programmable gate array (FPGA) for processing and evaluating the (measuring) data in real-time.
Conventionally, it has therefore been necessary to design the device 260 and/or programming for monitoring according to real-time requirements, for example, a real-time operating system because the monitoring process of the SAR has to take place in real-time.
The MR system according to prior art has disadvantageous real-time requirements of the real-time computer 260 or the device and/or programming because they are difficult to implement and/or expensive.